Great tutorial. Everything is clear now. Thanks Jeff.

Jeff: I don't want to be a party pooper, but I've got some news on the .mat files you might be interested in:

.mat files contain (mi) files, which contain "textures" in their slots

the .mat files aren't case-sensitive, they just contain info, BUT that info, being the maps in the (mi) files, ARE case-sensitive, they have a certain "adress" on your computer. for example, I have a A&D whith a diffuse map, located in C:/documents and settings/boomerang/desktop/new folder

I zip the .mat and the textures and upload it, like you said.

When someone else downloads it and extracts these files, they get a .mat file with texture maps. And the .mat file has (mi) files which are black (dead links) becauce those maps STILL refer to the adress on MY computer.

This can even be reproduced on one and the same computer: get a texture, bungle it in a A&D, create a .mat

the mat file can be dragged anywhere, np, but if you rename the folder which the texture-map is in, or simply move the texture to another map on the computer, the (mi) file with that texture is as good as dead, and you would have to go into the texture slot and relink the map manually! I don't see everyone doing this to be honest..

If I'm missing something plz let me know because I'm trying to get Max to smartlink the texture-maps in my (mi) files, it's not like when starting up max you "external files missing" error.. the material editor will just give you black materials

I state that .mat files cannot be transferred between computers because the texture-maps in the (mi) shaders in the .mat file, are case-sesitive, and do NOT have smartlink available. Care to counterstate?

woops srry didn't realise my first post would come through as well, had some problems with that one.

No but I just wanted to be sure that the map files in (mi) files in .mat files, indeed do not have smartlink.

It's pretty strange why as to max doesn't have this.. I guess .mat files are for on one and the same computer... for now.

Hello jeff the truth agradeceria that you me were collaborating, not exactly like to load materials that it(he,she) goes down this page, I use 3d max 2009 and ray mentions, agradeceria your collaboration, I am very interested in buying materials to learn and this way to create the mios, his(her,your) collaboration is very important since I speak Spanish and use a translator.

Jeff,

I'm very new to 3ds max,atrying to learn. I have watch your getting started video and still have question. Are the material downloads supposed to be .mat files? If so where do I put the maps? So far when I download snd un-zip, all I get is an Access shortcut file and maps. Don't understand something I guess. any help.

Thanks
Don

This is the one thing I would love to know today.
I download one of the materials (stone-47_AT01Full.zip) inside the zip is a file called "stone-47_AT01Full". Do I manually add .mat to the end of this file? (I have hide extensions for known file types turned OFF i.e. I see .jpg on jpeg files)
I add the "stone-47_AT01Full" to my "materiallibraries" folder. The project folder is set-up correctly. I then:

Start max >
Create a box >
Press "m" to bring up material editor

And this is where I get stuck. Where is the "stone-47_AT01Full" material?

What I was expecting was a material slot to have something resembling the preview graphic on the website which I would then apply to my box, render and BINGO I have a box of stone.

Where am I going wrong?

Thanks in advance for your help

First I would read through the FAQs section linked in menu on front page. First off, make sure you downloaded using a browser besides Internet Explorer such as Firefox. Your system should list the .mat extension if you have it set up to show all extensions, but some programs seem to hijack this. Additionally in the materials with the "Full" in the name, they are full Arroway textures generously donated by them and very large, so we had to put the textures for those materials in the "Texture" section of the site so that we weren't storing them separately for all three program versions of the materials. You will need to download the textures from the texture section in the section that matches that of where the materials was gotten. This is only for the Arroway FULL textures, all other materials should have all the files necessary in the archived file.

The materials all work if your download isn't corrupt, so try again using a browser like Firefox, chrome, opera...... as the system has problems with the newer versions of IE.

Let us know after you have looked into the download and read the FAQS and tried any possible solutions listed there.